Israel’s IDF Lures Female Recruits for Computer Corps

Israel’s military is trying to encourage more women to join its vaunted computer division.

In Israel, like most of the world, the universe of computer whizzes and technology entrepreneurs is overwhelmingly male. But the Israeli military’s vaunted computer division has declared war on the technology gender gap – and claims that it’s turning the tide.

With brochures urging 11th grade girls to join “the next generation of technological women,’’ the army operates a handful of programs that identify promising female high schoolers with no background in technology and offers training in subsidized girls-only courses.

Officers estimate that several hundred women a year are enlisting in the army’s computer and communication corps as a result of the campaign, and that 40 percent of the staff today consists of women. In the cyber defense units, it’s more than half. That said, a 2011 IDF assessment of the technology gap said the numbers are “extremely low’’ in R&D jobs.

The immediate goal of the push is to solve a human resources challenge: As the Israel Defense Force has become increasingly wired over the last two decades, the thirst for skilled personnel has grown. Military recruiters are looking beyond the usual computer geeks who lack the physical brawn for a combat job.

“The IDF is in dire need of soldiers, or conscripts that enter the army with a technological background,’’ said Lt. Col. Karen Ben Natan Kruger, the head of technological personnel and research. “The IDF will always prefer to place a male conscript in combat. My aim is to utilize the rest of the population.’’

One program, dubbed “Hadarim’,’ Hebrew for “citrus,” begins in the last year of high school with a year-long introductory computer course for girls administered by Microsoft trainers. Once in the army, recruits learn network administration, systems management, programming, and cyber defense in the army’s computer school.

Some graduates of the Hadarim program continue on to “Mamram,’’ an IDF computing center whose graduates are in high demand in the workforce because of a reputation for pumping out top programmers and start-up CEOs.

“I used think it wasn’t for me,’’ said Sgt. Hodayah Ohayon, a Hadarim participant who graduated from an army training course as a network administrator in September. “Then I found myself challenged.’’

Officers say the push to recruit women into the computing corps has a broader societal goal: positioning them to get jobs in technology companies after the army and close the technology gap in the civilian workforce.

“The idea to try to balance it out to at least 50-50,’’ said Lt. Tamar Bar Sheshset, a spokeswoman for the computer corps. “So gals will be there, and it won’t be a world of guys.’’

So far, however, there’s no hard data to point to an erosion of the gender gap in civilian high tech industries.

In the Israeli private sector, women account for 22 percent of research and development employees, according to government statistics cited in the Haaretz newspaper. According to the Genome project, only 9 percent of Israeli technology entrepreneurs are women.

When asked about what female graduates of the computer units do after the army, the army spokesman said that some have been recruited by Microsoft and Intel. The army didn’t have numbers on what percent of Hadarim graduates go on to work in technology jobs.

However, a study of graduates from a similar program in which women trained for technology jobs in women-only post-secondary courses – “Rakia’’ — found only 22 percent employed in the field of study five years after leaving the army, according to study by Israel’s trade ministry. Nearly two-thirds of the graduates never end up working in the field.

Indeed, experts both in the army and outside say it will take more than the military outreach to reverse the technology gender gap.

“It’s the education system that is failing. Women leave tech studies at 14, when it is considered not cool,’’ said Michal Michaeli, who is raising money for a venture capital fund, Eva Ventures, that will invest in start-ups founded by women. “Even from very solid homes, this is the stage when peer pressure is the strongest. This is when they need an answer.’’

An army assessment suggested the technology gap starts even earlier, with messages passed from parents and teachers to girls. An IDF paper from 2011 concluded “the ability of the IDF to make up for this is limited…the path must be begun much earlier.’’